Processing a White Supremacist Insurrection Through Hip-Hop Mixtape Making: A School Counseling Intervention

ABSTRACT

In this New York City, New York-based study, we made use of a Critical Cycle of Mixtape Creation (CCMC) intervention to examine a Bangladeshi high school student's understanding of justice, and the impact of injustice on his well-being, through his creation of and reflection on original hip-hop song lyrics. The student participated in the CCMC intervention amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing Black Lives Movement, and crucially the white supremacist insurrection on January 6, 2021. Findings indicate that the CCMC enabled the student to process systemic racism and injustices with peers on his own terms and to further develop a knowledge of self. This study offers practical insights for school counselors to use hip-hop interventions with youth to collectively process the world around them.